Whatever Happened to the Personal Bubble?

All right readers, so what’s the deal with the NSA? In the name of precaution and security of the Nation, the National Security Agency (NSA) has stored millions of Internet and cellphone users’ data, along with monitoring phone calls and various other media activities of those it considers a threat to the safety of the nation. However, in defending their actions the NSA claims that their purpose is justified in the name of detecting foreign and domestic threats. While I concede weapons of mass destruction and terrorism are things I believe we all prefer were kept at bay, it is blasphemous to assert that tabs need be kept on close to a hundred percent of the Internet using population. The NSA’s existence stems from the signing into law of the USA-PATRIOT Act, which declared many invasions of citizens privacy constitutional, ranging from wire taps to invasions of homes and businesses in “sneak and peek” searches. When examining the act it is transparent that “the broad scope and full impact of the act’s provisions did not come to light until after it’s signing,” as stated by Andrew Walter in a review of the homeland security situation. In a haste to protect the borders of our nation from attack in face of a successful one on September 11th, we failed to foresee the results of the sacrifices to privacy that would be made in the name of security in the nation. How do we secure our privacy? At this years South by Southwest(SXSW) Tech festival multiple topics were discussed amongst Ben Wizner and Chris Soghoian of the ACLU, and their guest of honor Edward Snowden. Particularly, the point that mass surveillance can “become too expensive,” and this can be achieved through open ended encryption being provided by websites big and small, and putting security first when designing new apps, computer programs, etc. -Shivite12